


with gaze fixed upon the heavens, one will surely stumble

by purplekitte



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Friends With Benefits, Gender-ambiguous dark knight/dragoon WoL, Other, POV Second Person, Spoilers through 3.2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7004833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aymeric does not hesitate to ask a difficult favor of the Warrior of Light. His personal affections are true, yet nothing to his sense of purpose for Ishgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with gaze fixed upon the heavens, one will surely stumble

“Will you kill Estinien for me?” Aymeric asks.

“Yes,” you say. Alphinaud might find this a betrayal of the promise you’d made him, but you didn’t regret making either. That was why this conversation was happening during adult time in the depths of the Forgotten Knight.

Aymeric did not ask easily. He did not ask out of lack of regard for his friend. He loved Estinien, when you couldn’t really be said to like him. Yet he asked. So you answered. You will save him if you can and kill him if you must, and better your hand than Aymeric’s. You do not despair. You vowed to get Thancred back from the Ascians whatever the odds and you did.

“I regret using you so, my friend. I know you get this all the time. The fate of Eorzea left in your hands again and again. Are we so weak without you? But as a commander of my people, I must use anything, anyone, I can, before being a friend.”

“It’s alright. I’ve made peace with that.” You have a shield, so people can look at you and see a respectable paladin, and ignore that the House Fortemps shield on your back is broken and your black sword is two-handed. “I wouldn’t want to stand around and do nothing anyway.”

You turn your attention back to your food. The thick, graininess of Ishgardian bread, the creamy potatoes and cheese you stuffed in it, the sourness of the yak milk in your tea and the bitterness of the beer. For a moment you consider getting falling down drunk, but that’s a terrible idea and you hardly want to avoid Aymeric’s company so much.

“I knew he’d be there,” Aymeric says after awhile. “I knew Nidhogg would never be able to stay away.”

“I thought it would be you,” you agree. You never talked about this before it happened, lest you both not go through with your plans. “I hated you for walking to your death and telling me I was not allowed to avenge you.”

“I was prepared to die. I was prepared to be left the only one standing, purposefully spared by Nidhogg’s spite. I forgot dragons can be like men in turning on their own, though I’d just been reminded what we are like.”

“I was so scared I would have to tell Vidofnir’s dragonets why their mother wasn’t coming home.”

“Can you sense him?”

“Yes. In the back of my mind, always.” You didn’t spread around that you were the Azure Dragoon, the second in the same generation. Only a few of the higher up dragoons you’d worked with know. You aren’t Ishgardian, you don’t have dragons’ eyes in your blood, and don’t know why you had been so chosen. Perhaps that was what makes it easier. Estinien had been overwhelmed by the power by fitting it too well. You have a harder time resisting your own inner darkness, Fray’s voice, than the whispers of dragons. “I knew he was close. I know his hatred.”

“For the a moment there, the only thing that scared me more than Nidhogg was the thought that that was Estinien. That he could not abide peace and sought more dragons to kill.”

“That was his life. You could not have saved him. Ysayle could not have saved him. Things just... fell apart all wrong.” You force yourself to lighten the mood. You remember Ysayle, remember the spark between Estinien and her during your journey that was as much passion as it was hate, remember the image of Shiva in Falcon’s Nest that looks just like her to you, and want to cry. “No one could convince him to shower, let alone put his revenge against Nidhogg behind him.”

Aymeric smiles weakly in appreciation of the effort. Aymeric is so totally unlike Estinien. Friendly where he was harsh. Idealistic where he was cynical. A commander where he was a loner. Dedicated to putting the past behind him where he lived for revenge. Aymeric scares you much more, honestly.

Aymeric leans into you, eyelashes fluttering. His eyes are so blue.

You stop his lips with a hand. “I’m not him.”

“I’m not yours either.”

You are not Estinien and cannot be for Aymeric. Aymeric is not Haurchefant and cannot be for you. But you still remember the things Haurchefant did for you, and the way Aymeric is looking at you... Gods, had you really looked at him like that back then? Maybe you can live up to the legacy of your dead beloved and help you living friend.

“Well, if we’ve got that established...” You smile. You haven’t smiled like this in awhile. Easy, free, happy. Not like Haurchefant would have smiled because you’re not him. But like you smile, being a person who once knew Haurchefant.

You reach out, curl your fingers in Aymeric’s hair, and pull him to you. His lips are wet and his mouth sharp from all you’ve been drinking. You’re still grinning. Now that you’ve decided to do this, it’s become something you want a lot.

You don’t love Aymeric romantically, but he is a precious friend to you. You admire his idealism, his goodness, his honesty, even as you acknowledge how many times his belief in how things should be have caused trouble with their naivity.

“We should... go somewhere more private,” he manages eventually. His lips are red and he bites them as he talks and that’s just gorgeous.

“Lead the way,” you agree, giddy. The Lord Commander of Ishgard and the Warrior of Light retiring to his rooms for more tactical discussion at least has some plausible deniability, though disappearing into an inn room at the Forgotten Knight together is more tempting on account of being closer. You can’t bring yourself to care a wit about scandal at the moment—you’re the heathen who murdered the archbishop, after all—but you know tomorrow it will be easier this way.

You push him against the door, hold nothing back from your kiss or pressing against him. You fumble with the straps of his armor, clumsy in your impatience, and so does he as he strips you. You noticed the slight wince in his movements, though, and pull him down on top of you when you reach the bed. “You’re injured.”

“I’ll heal. Don’t ask me to wait.”

“Never.” You wrap your legs around his hips, arch your back in a long stretch at just how good it feels to rub against him. It is such a real and present danger that you could be dead tomorrow.

Seeing him like this—you’re not in love, but Menphina knows you want this to be more than a one-time thing. You want to be good for him. His relationship with Lucia involves too many layers of formality and hierarchy. Estinien is gone. You want to be his friend-with-benefits because you to can do this with no more complications than that. And, of course, you want to fuck him silly, want to try out all the interesting ideas you can think of off the top of your head to make him scream in pleasure. No denying that.

He’s panting by the time he moves his hand from between your legs to your hip, sweaty skin sticking to yours. You’re ready for him and in no mood to wait either, moving your bodies together with firm insistence. He’s beautiful, you think again as he pushes inside you. His hair falling around your face mussed from your tugging at it, his cheeks flushed, and he still looks at you like you hung the stars in the sky.

He starts to say something, and you cut him of with a kiss, rolling your hips to meet his thrusts. He only moans after that, the sounds and the rhythm more ragged and broken as he approaches his climax. You don’t hold back either, embracing the pleasure that builds inside you, and grin as he cries out as you come around him.

Sweaty and sticky, you cling together rather than pull apart for a long time. You let your breaths and heartbeats even out enjoy each other’s skin on skin. You laugh, and kiss more, even as your eyes droop.

It’s so likely that he’ll die in the coming war. It’s so likely either you or he will kill his best friend with your own hands, rather than save him alive. But you’ll always have had this, and that’s better than not.


End file.
